FALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 1848 numerical minority, really echoed the voice of the nation in calling for reform, had dealt with it as though they were a faction whose real aim was not reform but revolution, and who were to be silenced, not by the removal of unquestionable abuses, but, if necessary, by force. A state of things more dangerous to the dynasty could not well be conceived. Lulled into a false security by the facility with which he had for many years been able to impress his own views and wishes upon his Ministers, Louis Philippe had forgotten, that, as it is they who in all Constitutional Governments are primarily responsible to the people, their freedom of action must not be overborne by the dictates of the Sovereign, and that if, forgetful of their own prerogatives, they suffer themselves to become his subservient agents, they do so at the hazard of dragging him down with their own fall. To such a result things were indeed surmised by some close observers to be rapidly tending; and the recurrence of Louis Philippe to a Bourbon policy seemed the more unaccountable as well as dangerous, that throughout all the countries in Europe, where Absolutism had hitherto prevailed, the cry for free Constitutions had arisen. But to none had it occurred, that the downfall of the Orleans dynasty was so close at hand. It had cut itself off from the sympathies of England, and it was known to be pursuing a line of policy both in Switzerland and in Italy which might readily lead to an European war. Old jealousies had revived; rightly or wrongly,' England had come to look at France with suspicion, Rightly as it proved; and but for the Revolution of 1848, Great Britain, we now know, would have found France arrayed against her in an alliance with Russia, Prussia, and Austria. These Powers had become so seriously alarmed at the encouragement given by England to the Constitutional movement in Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, and Italy, that they considered it necessary to unite in measures for the common defence. They then entered into communications with the French Government, and had actually settled terms with them, when the whole scheme was blown into the air by the events of 1848 STATE OF NATIONAL DEFENCES. 3 and the question of national defences, too long neglected, had by the beginning of 1848 taken hold of the public mind. This had been forcibly called to it by the publication, early in January, 1848, of the Duke of Wellington's letter, written in the previous January, to Sir John Burgoyne, which contained the startling announcement, that after reconnoitring 'over and over again the whole coast from the North Foreland, by Dover, Folkestone, Beachey Head, Brighton, Arundel, to Selsey Bill near Portsmouth,' the Duke had found, 'excepting immediately under the fire of Dover Castle, there is not a spot on the coast on which infantry might not be thrown on shore at any turn of the tide, with any wind and in any weather, and from which such body of infantry, so thrown on shore, would not find within the distance of five miles a road into the interior of the country through the cliffs, practicable for the march of troops.' Such an announcement upon such authority no Englishman could read with indifference. The consequences of a successful descent upon our shores were summed up in one sentence. 'When,' added the Duke, did any man hear of allies of a country unable to defend itself?' The Duke's letter had not been intended for the public eye. But its publication was well timed. The condition of Europe was such that it behoved us to look well to our own security, and to the state of our 6 February and March, 1848. That some combination of the kind was on foot, our political agents abroad had surmised; but the fact was subsequently put beyond a doubt by the revelations of Count d'Haussonville, in his work published in 1850: 'Désespérant,' he writes, de pouvoir jamais s'entendre avec un gouvernement qui s'était fait à Madrid le patron des cabales Espagnoles, qui à Rome, à Naples, et en Sicile favorisait la destruction des institutions, et la levée des boucliers en Grèce, qui était devenu un agent incessant de trouble et de désordre, qui avait livré les Conservateurs de Fribourg et de Lucerne à la colère des Radicaux Suisses, les grandes puissances de l'Europe venaient témoigner à la France le désir de se concerter avec elle à l'exclusion de l'Angleterre. Notre Cabinet avait accepté leurs ouvertures; un jour était pris (le 15 Mars) pour donner aux arrangements déjà débattus une forme arrêtée et précise.' -D'Haussonville: Histoire de la Politique, &c. ii. 381. 4 FIRST BUDGET OF 1848. 1848 alliances; and no voice could have been raised in warning which could command greater respect; for no man had better reason than the Great Duke to know, that England could only maintain her supremacy in the civilised world so long as she remained 'inviolate,'-and this not from invasion only, but also from the no less grievous disaster of internal convulsion. Impressed with these views, Lord John Russell, in introducing the Budget on the 18th of February, which he did in person, instead of leaving it to his Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed an increase of 358,000l. to the Military, Naval, and Ordnance Estimates, with a further sum of 150,000l. to lay the foundation of a Militia Force. He carefully guarded himself against the suggestion, that these Estimates were framed in anticipation of a rupture with any Foreign Power, least of all with the French nation, for a cordial, intimate, and lasting alliance with which he declared himself to be most anxious. There was no ground, he added, to infer that the lengthened peace which Europe had enjoyed was about to be broken; but the proposed outlay was deemed to be essential in order to put the Kingdom, with a view to the altered conditions of modern warfare, in a position of security. Under any circumstances such a proposal was sure to be resisted by the economical and Peace parties, of whom Mr. Joseph Hume, Mr. Cobden, and Mr. Bright were then the prominent organs. But when the Prime Minister, in making it, had to couple it with the announcement of a deficit on the Budget of no less than 3,346,500l., which he proposed to meet by renewing the Income Tax, then about to expire, for three years, and by raising it from sevenpence to one shilling in the pound for the next two years, even those who were most zealous for the national honour could not fail to be staggered. The country was suffering acutely from wide-spread stagnation 1848 ITS UNPOPULARITY AND WITHDRAWAL. 5 of trade, and from financial distress, and its difficulties had been augmented by the burden thrown upon its local resources through the continuous influx during the winter of 1847-8 of destitute and sickly poor from the sister island, in numbers computed to amount to not less than half a million. It was natural, therefore, that it should hear of such a serious increase to its burdens with dismay. Petitions against the measure poured in from all sides, and an agitation so formidable sprang up, that ten days afterwards the Chancellor of the Exchequer came down to the House with an Amended Budget, announcing at the same time the abandonment of any increase of the Income Tax,3 but asking for the renewal of the tax for three years. Meanwhile the events which had occurred in Paris and elsewhere, by concentrating the attention of the public on the precarious condition of the Continent, and the possibility of turmoil at home, tended to calm the public excitement, and to make this modified proposal more acceptable than it might otherwise have been. The aspect of affairs was too serious to admit of recourse to the usual tactics of party strife; and a blunder in financial policy, which in other circumstances might have endangered the Ministry, if not forgotten, was at least condoned. To displace the Government in the presence of a great public danger would have been an act of suicidal folly. Whatever exception might be taken to the details of their policy, the first duty of all good citizens was to strengthen their hands for the The total number of poor relieved in the year ending July, 1848, throughout the United Kingdom, was 4,258,609, or about one-seventh of the entire population, and this at a cost of 8,352,7987., exclusive of the 8,000,000l. raised by the Government and expended in relief in Ireland. These were figures which no statesman could contemplate without deep anxiety. In his annual review of the session, Mr. Disraeli, with the rough vigour which characterized these periodical Philippics, speaking of the Government proposal, said, 'In the country, a ménagerie before feeding-time could alone give an idea of the unearthly yell with which it was received.' 6 EFFECT PRODUCED IN ENGLAND 1848 maintenance of the national honour, and the preservation of social order. The opponents of the Government, who, in the language of Lord John Russell, speaking on the 25th of February, 'wished to see the prevalence of low establishments, low estimates, and low views,' found the ground cut from under them by the events of the last few days. The visions of enduring peace which had been sketched by them in the most glowing colours during the debate upon the Budget in its original shape had been rudely dispelled. Could any man foresee,' said the Chancellor of the Exchequer (28th February), 'what the state of the world would be two years or even six months hence? How long was it since a gentleman, recently returned from France, had told them that the French people could have no object in making a revolution? Who could have foreseen ten days ago, what had occurred in Paris during the last week?' The temptation thus to turn the tables against Mr. Cobden, who was the gentleman here referred to, was, no doubt, irresistible; and the argument deduced from his prophetic failure was legitimate for the purposes of debate. Subsequent events, it is true, have shown that not only was he right in his assertion that the French people could have no object in making a revolution, but that the French nation did not, in fact, desire one. But with the fact of the revolution, and such a revolution, before them, people were not of a mind to accept as satisfactory Mr. Cobden's admission in his reply, that, when he had lately spoken against the probability of any but the most peaceful aspect of affairs in France, he was unprepared for the revolution which had occurred-for such insanity in a minister, or such madness in a monarch.' And yet in this he was only speaking the prevailing thought of the most experienced political observers. It |